Upgrades eyed for Oak Beach, Sebewaing parks

Published 8:00 am, Saturday, June 20, 2015

HURON COUNTY — Small boat access at Oak Beach County Park and renovations at Sebewaing County Park are one step closer to reality as officials pursue improvement grants.

County commissioners last year agreed to match a $5,950 waterways grant from the Department of Natural Resources (DRN) to fund an engineering study, the results of which would show if it was feasible to build a boat launch at Oak Beach County Park.

Commissioner Sami Khoury said the road commission is now considering a match grant to build the launch, which could be constructed as early as next spring.

Signs of nature overtaking the Oak Beach launch area were apparent last season, when grass crept underneath and over the metal grating leading into the lake, murky puddles of brush settled in sunken tire tracks before the shoreline and sand patches dotted the entrance to the ramp.

“It’s become dysfunctional the way it is,” Neal Hentschl, the road commission’s secretary-manager, said last May.

He said major improvements could help kayakers, watercraft and sport fishing boats, and it would be “logistically just right” because Oak Beach is about halfway between two other major boat launches, in Port Austin and Caseville.

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The county’s portion of the grant comes from revenue from camping fees at county parks, Hentschl said. The restricted Waterways Fund consists of revenues derived from 1.6 percent of state gasoline taxes and 51 percent of watercraft registration fees, according to the DNR.

At Sebewaing County Park, Khoury said a Great Lakes Fisheries Trust grant could help fund boat slips, a boardwalk and a floating dock. He said the cost would be more than $566,000. A separate project would add more spots for campers along the river.